2024-04-09 A Meditation on the Friendship Tip

“19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.” (1 Cor 9:19-23 ESV)

“13 A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed. 14 The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouths of fools feed on folly. 15 All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast. 16 Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it. 17 Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it. 18 A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention. 19 The way of a sluggard is like a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a level highway. 20 A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish man despises his mother. 21 Folly is a joy to him who lacks sense, but a man of understanding walks straight ahead.” (Prov 15:13-21 ESV)

We live in community. One person’s thoughts in the direction of another person, these formulate and come naturally, vis-a-vis even passing acquaintance. Even a modest introduction or overheard word about another soul, these things accumulate and contribute to how and why we do the things we do. More than this, there is the constant pressure felt, even if no pressure was intended, to do things differently; this can lead to obsessed, paranoid, acute negation, negated words, dismissive words, hateful words, and attempts at humor that fall flat. These can lead to perma-fear, a glimpsed nirvana as discerned and attested to by another, somehow frightening or spelling our own undoing. Spelling something verboten. Something avoided with all mechanism and machinations.

So to our own testimony is the plaintive plea to be those simpler souls, who bless, who pray for those who curse them, who are eager for some less sophistical or intellectual purpose, instead simply learning to meet people where they’re at, to reassure, to hand-hold, to hate outright that liability was never allocated its needful place in the corporate structure, but that still we have a Liable One named Christ, who blessed us not as those righteous but as those who need forgiveness: this Gift is one that is easily avoided, somehow causing jealousy that someone else found it, but denying that it is right in front of us, on offer, and available to groom our stray lockets and our wandering Halloween frights.

One person’s choreographed Role in the community comes with it some expectation of all things a personal burden and no one a personal communicator, friend, fellow traveler; our deeds are those of one’s under undue pressure: to declare war on all they once held dear, to do so outside of the community’s blessing, to shoulder a burden only bettered by Christ’s own, who faced ignominy and humiliation, yet unlike us, who went that way in capacity, full ownership, of His Cross. He spoke little. He grimaced and asked after that Father in Heaven, who in times past had been the lookout or the flashing lights of the SUV in a hazardous environs. He wondered why ten legions of angel-armies had not by now assembled. He thought He had known His Father’s promise to the Son: that Sonship was allocated and allotted, gifted and patiently prayed over. That goodness begat goodness, a Father not stern but rather Love towards all that the Son gets up to.

Then to our forgetful “advanced” notions of Grace and life together: need be met to do the simpler pedantic, down-market, frustratingly simplistic deeds of Reassurance and Love. To stop aping our inferiors or our fellow-travelers from another it would seem cosmos. To acknowledge, Yes, this one I do know, only we never quite went “all the way” on the friendship tip. We never quite got beyond the gladsome approval from a distance: see him, see her, in gladsome companionship, rollicking with laughter and fun, a proper clique or group of people, who, we are assured, bear no ill will, break no bones of contention, do no Harm.

Thus the mega-church versus the intellectual provinciality. Thus the psycho-somatic tides and assurances over the wonkish or nerdy table-talk. Thus the real sharp-as-a-tack fracking meets the doggedly patient or certain proof theory. The proof in the pudding, that the coup-de-grace is free of the more suggestible temperatures and climes, that the plain-spoken gift to each other, is perhaps sufficient gift, from this one at least: we do not put undue burdens on one another, but see in the eyes of Faith that a winning streak, a vein of gold in the rock has been found and this one, for once, is going places with it. A new success, a modern Purpose and Attainment, a proper aim for the stars mentality. And with all that is the love of correction, the love of respectfully engaging, the love of daring to posit a public fuss perhaps, as some respect for the Person, for Us, for each and every Child of the living God.